About VSF
The Viroqua Shakespeare Festival was founded in 2022 by a group of Viroqua-area theater artists along with friends and collaborators from around the Midwest.
From Whence We Came
In 2022, this intrepid group of thespians staged As You Like It with only 6 days of rehearsal, performing on a patch of grass in an open field on the eastern edge of the city of Viroqua. With only bales of hay to frame the space and a pickup truck to hide behind between entrances and exits, the first Viroqua Shakespeare Festival held 2 performances on October 1st and 2nd, 2022, joined by close to 100 audience members, with pre-show harp music and apple cider pressing to round out the weekend’s festivities.
Since those October days, four more festivals have ensued, growing our audience to over 600 in 2026, and welcoming more and more theater artists to Viroqua from around the nation, while continuing to employ countless locals, who together have staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2023), Henry the Fifth (2024), The Tempest (2025), and Romeo and Juliet (2026), along with poetry slams, touring shows, singing workshops, staged readings, children’s theater, and plenty of live music, food, and merriment.
Viroqua Shakespeare Festival’s Past Seasons
